Dupont Crimp Tool Tutorial

Introduction: Dupont Crimp Tool Tutorial

This Instructable describes how to crimp Dupont connectors on a wire without soldering.

A custom cable with 2 single male pins to 2 grouped female pins will be created step by step. (See the picture) This cable is not available in any store, so let's DIY with the right tools and components.

Dupont is also called Jumper Wire cables. They are low cost and used to connect hardware such as sensors, Arduino boards and breadboards together. The connectors are available in male and female with a 2.54mm (100mill) pitch.

Advantages of creating your own custom cables:

Cheap.

Solid connection.

Custom cable length.

Custom cable color.

Easy to connect / disconnect hardware.

Any combination of male / female connectors.

Group male / female pins in one single connector with 1 to 8 pins.

Applications:

Connect sensors to your Arduino board.

Connect a breadboard to your Arduino board.

Connect other hardware PCB's together.

Wire hardware in a final product.

Others.

Let's start and have fun!

Step 1: Shopping List

Dupont housings are available in single pin or multiple pins (groups of 1 to 8 pins). Ready-made cables are also available, but it's cheaper to create your own cables.

The following components are needed for this custom male-female cable:

The position of the wire (coper and plastic isolation) in the connector is critical. I had many damaged connectors when the wire moves a few millimeters when placing the wire with connector in the crimp tool. For this reason, I invented step 7 to fold the pull relief first. This keeps the wire in position which is a huge improvement for me.

I leave it up to the reader to test step 7 and post feedback. Maybe it is not needed with every tool.

Simple, once you know how it is done. Embarrasing to say that I made many (like over 300) connections, while removing the tab and inserting the wire into the connector while holding it in the crimping device... After a while I got 100% ok connections, but the process was slower then needed and required much concentration. Nice instructable!